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Friday, February 4, 2011

NoMoJo Society and Contest Winners!

First, a random drawing of four winner for my 600 Followers contest. The winners are:

1. MPax who now has an insufferably cute case of E. Coli2. Walk2write, who can now share Chicken Pox with her grandson (and not feel guilty about it)3. Melody, who'd prefer to curl up with a book instead of an infection (hard to argue with that!)4. Jonene, who earned herself the irritating yet adorable common cold!

I'll be emailing you for addresses soon. :)

Thanks to everyone for being so supportive and joining in the fun.

On to today's post!

Recently I found myself in the valley between finishing the first draft of a novel and digging into revisions.

The runner's high of laying out the story was behind; what remained was the work of fixing all the mistakes I knew I made.

I'd lost my mojo for the time being. Not the Austin Powers type, but that self-confidence in my ability and in my WIP.

The thing about loss of mojo is that it might be possible to keep going, but without the verve. Better to give it time to pass, move on to something different for a while and get the pasion back. The mood could even be used for criticism of the WIP, constructive of course!

The only thing I can say is give it a day. Two. No more than a week. Then make yourself work on it for a few minutes at a time and gradually increase the time you force yourself to sit and stare at the words you've written. It really doesn't take too long to get your groove back [borrowing those words I wish I'd written].

I think maybe a nice evening out (or in!!) with some pampering is in order! Yay for you!!!! I think writers give themselves such a hard time even if they've achieved so so so much!! So well done you!!!!

Take a step back and breath. Even write something just for fun. I've been in a slump for over a month. Never happened to me before. But it's my own fault. I've been stressing over my new plot which had dampened my creativity. Just yesterday I threw up my hands and guess what? I had a break-through in the main plot. It's not perfect yet, but it's movement.

Yup, been there. And I have to agree, the only way out is through. I take between a week and a month between writing and rewriting. That whole distance thing. Then, if I haven't stepped up, I force myself to step up.

I also find it helpful to print out a copy. It's easy to be resistant to this over ecological reasons, but there really isn't a way to get around it. Once the first draft is done, the hard copy helps me think, gives me something to sit with and put a pen on, helps make the fact that this is something worth doing. It's real, it's a book, now all I need to do is make it a better book.

Oh yeah! I get stuck there, too. I read somewhere (and wish I could say who wrote it)something about when you're suffering from that lack of confidence, go ahead and give in to it for a little while. Write to yourself! Write: You suck! Your writing stinks!etc.Just get it all out of your system. And then you'll begin to fight back.. It DID help!

I am SO THERE! I finished my WIP at the end of NaNo (November). Took the month of December off to let it sit, (goody for me). Now it's February, and I've yet to make any clear progress. I've done some work on it, but if you make that molasses in January, you'll have the picture.

I joined a twitter challenge to write 10,000 words this weekend. If I can get half that done on revisions I'll be thrilled.

Dude, I'm there. It's so daunting to look at that huge stack of pages with the markups all over them, waiting to be fixed. It's slow going, but I'm plowing through. Definitely not as fast as I was when writing the thing. But I feel pretty steady with it. It'll get done someday ;p Keep your head up, if you do a little each day, it'll start to make a difference. Good luck with revisions!

I'm *constantly* in that place... which is probably why I have written four books and fully edited none. And why I feel so stalled with my writing career. *sigh* I wish I knew how to break that 'meh' barrier!

That's brilliant! Er, and I'm sorry. I was a member of this club for the entire month of January, and I actually just ditched an ms because I simply felt "meh" about it. But now I've started something new and am feeling refreshingly manic. May you find your mojo soon.

Oh God yes. It gets discouraging at times, doesn't it. Or maybe a better word would be overwhelming. As in where to start. I've learned to step back and then come back and look at it again. Fresher WIP eyesight, you know. lolol!

I have also learned not to allow myself drown in the details. I take a section at a time. When I think I have it in a good spot, I move to the next. Meanwhile I have several good readers (several who are published) that give it to me straight or give suggestions. It helps.

Give it some time and the mojo will be back. If it isn't back in two weeks then take a bubble bath, eat some chocolate and read through some of your previous chapters. That should get your juices flowing. Then get writing.

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